


Field Trip

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [139]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Banter, F/M, MSR, Missing Scene, Partially Resolved ST?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 04:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7603387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their baseball "date," things have to get worse before they get better. And then they get a <i>whole</i> lot better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_“I just think I’ve… earned the benefit of the doubt, here.”  
_

It is a long drive to the airport, all the longer because they spend it in awkward silence. When they’re assigned seats three rows apart on the commuter flight to Charlotte, neither of them makes any attempt to ask for a change. 

Mulder is disappointed more than angry, but he won’t lie; there’s a little anger there, too. She’s just so goddamned stubborn. Any progress they might have made with their baseball outing has been completely undone in the week that followed. Scully seems almost pathologically determined to distance herself from him, and if he thought she were doing it because she truly wasn’t attracted to him or interested in him romantically, then he could respect that. He’d be sad, but he could accept it and try to pick up the pieces. He is 100% certain, however, that that’s not what’s going on here.

No, this is about control or fear or Catholic self-sacrifice or something. Probably a combination of things. But not one of them is genuine disinterest. He’s sure of that.

He promised himself he wouldn’t push, not least because he’d thought it would absolutely backfire, but now he’s beginning to doubt the certainty of that. Maybe they at least need to talk about it openly. If he can get at the root of whatever’s holding her back, maybe he can put forth a convincing counter-argument. He’s certainly already convinced himself.

Either way, whatever’s going on between them now has to stop. It doesn’t even feel like she’s his friend anymore, and that just straight-up sucks.


	2. Chapter 2

_“I’m going to check out where the bodies were found. You coming?”_  
_“No. You go ahead.”_

She hears his sigh, and once he’s gone, she lets out one of her own. This. This is exactly what she was afraid of, and they haven’t even done anything besides engage in some sexually-charged batting practice. She can only imagine how much worse it would be if they’d actually slept together.

It shouldn’t have been a big deal, or even a surprise, that she wanted to stay behind here and examine the physical evidence rather than join him in his search for lights in the sky. Instead, he’s acting like a scolded puppy, pouting because she didn’t just automatically agree with his hypothesis. The thing is, she’s not behaving any differently from normal. 

For a long while now, she has made a point of not letting her feelings for Mulder get in the way of her objectivity. It’s something that she’s struggled with, recently, enough that she’s had to redouble her efforts. But she simply cannot afford to blindly go along with whatever pie-in-the-sky theory he starts off any given case with; the whole point of her assignment to the X-Files, and indeed the reason they function so well together as a team, is that they balance each other out. He even said it himself once, telling her that her “goddamned strict rationalism and science” had saved him a thousand times over. 

Now, though, now that those feelings of hers are no longer secret, he seems to take her rationalism and science as a personal affront. The exasperation and hurt on his face this morning were plain as day, as if she meant to insult and belittle him, when she was only trying to do her damned job, same as always. She even tried to meet him halfway, positing ritual murder as a potential hypothesis, but he didn’t want to hear anything besides total support of his UFO theory. Somehow she doesn’t think it would go over well if she were to point out that maybe _he_ is the one being unreasonably rigid and unwilling to accept theories other than his own.

She sighs again. She doesn’t know how to fix this, how to go back to the easy rapport they’ve always had. It’s apparent, though, that whatever is changing between them isn’t going to stop just because she’s tried to ignore it. Even though they haven’t even kissed, their comfortable status quo has been destroyed, and it will likely take a very uncomfortable conversation before they can regain anything approaching normalcy.

That will have to wait, however. For now, there is work to do. She turns to the coroner.

“Does your lab here have a gas chromatograph or mass spectrometer, by any chance?”


	3. Chapter 3

The hospital balks at putting them in the same room, but they refuse to be separated. Skinner finally has to flash his badge and use the power of his position before the head administrator will agree to let them stay together. Once they are carefully cleaned up, it's a long afternoon and evening of testing and treatment for the acid burns on their skin. They both drift in and out of sleep, exhausted by their ordeal.

Whatever connected them before, underground, seems to connect them still, at least for a while. When they sleep, their dreams are shared, confirmed upon waking with knowing looks and nods.

They sit in their office, one on either side of the desk. Mulder fiddles with a pencil, while Scully sips a cup of coffee.

“So,” she says at last, “Brown Mountain lights, or Brown Mountain mass hallucinations?”

He scoffs. “I suppose that _would_ provide a credible, scientific explanation. Except for the fact that the lights have been caught on film, and to the best of my knowledge, film can’t hallucinate.” She smirks, and he sighs. “But I will concede that the verbal accounts far outweigh those accompanied by video or photographic evidence. It’s _plausible_ that the frequency of occurrence may be exaggerated by people going out there and seeing what they expect to see.”

In the hospital, a nurse draws Mulder’s blood, waking him briefly. Scully’s eyes blink open, and she asks for a cup of water.

Now they’re in his apartment, side by side on the couch. Scully has a glass of water, Mulder a beer.

He picks at the label on the bottle. “I’ve got to admit, given all that we’ve seen and encountered over the years, I never expected it would be a giant fungus that would almost do us in.”

“Hard to get more terrestrial than something literally contained within the Earth itself.” She chuckles. “But Mulder, this is hardly the first thing to have nearly done us in.”

“Yeah.” He takes another swallow, then sets the bottle on the coffee table and turns toward her, resting his elbow on the back of the couch and his head on his hand. “And once again, you were the one who figured it out. I’d be dead right now if it weren’t for you. Hell, not even from this. Any number of things would have taken me out years ago if you hadn’t been there to save me.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have been here to save you if you hadn’t saved _me_ , too.” Her voice gets quiet. “We’ve been lucky. Lucky to have each other, lucky to… to have overcome some of the things we’ve faced.”

Mulder sits up, reaching for his beer and knocking into his IV stand instead. In the bed beside his, Scully looks over at him.

“Better lucky than good?” he croaks, his voice nothing like the version in his head from a moment earlier.

“No reason we can’t be both,” she whispers hoarsely.

He reaches a bandaged hand toward her, and she gently grasps his fingertips with her own.

They’re in her apartment, seated at her kitchen table, their hands loosely linked atop it. His thumb brushes absently across her knuckles, and she suppresses a shiver.

“What are we doing, Scully? Why are we fighting this?”

She looks down at their hands. “I don’t know, Mulder I… I’m afraid. Of all the ways it could go wrong.” She meets his gaze, her eyes wet. “Tell me you’re not afraid.”

Her words hang between them, both a challenge and a plea. 

“All right, I’m afraid,” he says, remembering the way she once answered that same question. “But it’s an irrational fear.”

She makes a sound that is half-laugh, half-sob, and he pulls her fingers to his lips. The dream fades to black as the last of the mushroom’s effects are purged from their systems, the connection broken. For a time they both sleep, dreamless.

It is fully dark outside when they awaken again, this time to find Skinner speaking with one of the doctors at the foot of Scully’s bed.

“But there’s no internal damage, then?” Skinner asks, and the doctor shakes her head.

“Not as far as we can tell, no,” she confirms. “Now, as I said, I’d like to keep them both under observation for another 24 hours, but as long as they feel well enough to travel, I’ll sign off on their release either tomorrow night or the next morning.”

“You hear that, Scully? Only one more day of room service before we’ve gotta go home again. Better live it up.” His voice is not quite as gravelly as before.

“Ah, good. You’re awake again.” The doctor, whose nametag says Baker, moves to stand between them. “As I was just telling Mr. Skinner, neither of you should have any lasting effects from your exposure to the fungal organism or its secretions. It’s lucky the rescuers found you when they did. A few hours more, and the burning would have been significantly worse.”

She flips open the clipboard in her hands, looking at each of them in turn. “How are you both feeling?”

“Like I took a bath in lemon juice,” Mulder says. “Only without that fresh citrus smell.”

“It itches more than it hurts, though my ears are both pretty sore,” Scully adds, her voice also sounding better than it did. 

“Well, that’d be the pain medication you’ve been given.” Dr. Baker makes a note on her clipboard, then picks up Mulder’s chart from the foot of his bed and flips through it. “You both do have some second degree burns, but they’re small and localized. Really just the areas that weren’t protected by your clothing. They should heal just fine. If you start feeling significant discomfort, let a nurse know and we can get you something stronger for the pain. Okay?”

Mulder nods, and Scully thanks her, and with a last check of Scully’s chart, Dr. Baker leaves the room. Skinner clears his throat.

“I’ve got to get back to Washington. I’ll expect your reports on this as soon as you’re able to return to work.” He turns to leave the room, pausing in the doorway and looking back at them. “I’m glad you’re both all right.”

“Thanks for digging us up,” Mulder says.

“Sir?” Scully frowns at him. “How did you know where we were?”

“The coroner put the pieces together when you didn’t come back with his truck. He called me, put together a search and rescue team. You likely owe him your lives, agents.”

“Well, we’ll be sure to thank him before we leave town,” Mulder says, looking over at Scully. 

“Yes, absolutely,” she agrees.

With a nod, Skinner says, “I’ll see you back in Washington.” And then he’s gone.

And they’re alone again.

Gingerly, Mulder sits upright on his bed, groaning a little as the skin on his back stretches and stings. Scully looks at him with concern.

“Mulder, what are you doing?”

“I wanted to… ahh.” He closes his eyes, grimacing. “We need to talk, Scully.”

Her brow furrows, confusion added to her concern. “Okay, but you don’t have to get up for us to do that.”

He slowly moves so he’s sitting sideways on the bed, his legs dangling over the edge. Flexing his feet experimentally, he finds that his lower body is mostly unscathed by the acid. The pain in his back must be due to some of the goo dripping down the neck of his shirt. As he sits, however, the pain recedes again, and he smiles reassuringly at Scully.

“I just wanted to be able to see you. Really see you.”

“Mulder--”

He holds up a hand, the one not attached to the IV line. “I know, it’s silly. Just humor me. Please?”

“Mulder, I think I know what this is about. And we don’t… we don’t have to talk about it right now. You should rest.”

“I’m not exactly doing wind sprints here, Scully.” He smiles at her, then swallows. “You, uh, you were there with me, weren’t you? At your kitchen table?”

Blinking, she nods. 

“I don’t know how we were able to do that,” he muses. “Pretty cool though, huh?” 

“It makes absolutely no sense. A shared consciousness… it’s like something out of science fiction. I can’t even begin to guess at the mechanism.” 

“Well, actually, the Monroe Institute in Faber, Virginia has been studying mutual dreaming and related phenomena since the mid-70s. I can show you some of their research when we get back home, but… well, that’s not important right now. What matters is, I asked you a question, and then you asked me one. But they’re questions we should have asked each other a long time ago.” He leans forward, slowly, and reaches for her hand again. After a moment’s hesitation, she lets him take it. 

“I know you’re scared, Scully. I’m scared of the same things. But I’m more afraid of the regret I’ll feel if we _don’t_ take this chance. If we let our lives just pass us by without knowing--”

“I can’t change who I am,” she blurts out.

“I don’t… why would you think you’d have to?” he asks, utterly perplexed.

She licks her lips. “Just this morning -- God, was that only this morning? -- this morning, in the office. That, that ‘perfunctory dance’ we do at the start of every case? That’s not going to stop just because we’re… I mean I can’t _not_ look for the scientific explanation every single time. It wouldn’t be true to who I am, and frankly, I think it would be dangerous. Mulder, if I hadn’t been looking for an alternative to your UFO theory on this case, if I hadn’t pursued my investigation of that substance we found on the Schiffs, we might very well both be dead right now.” She takes a shaky breath before continuing. “I cannot allow my personal feelings to cloud my judgment or my objectivity. And if that’s going to get under your skin even more than usual, if it will feel like a personal attack once we change what we are to each other, then I don’t know how to reconcile that.”

He’s stunned into momentary silence. Long seconds stretch between them while Scully holds her breath. 

“I was wrong,” he finally murmurs, and she lets out her breath in a rush. “I mean, yeah, it’s frustrating to have my theories shot down, day after day. But I was wrong to react the way I did, this morning. You’re absolutely right, Scully. When you question me, when you look for other ways to explain the things we encounter, it means we’re covering all of our bases. Not just the ones that make the most sense to me.”

Letting go of her hand, he sits up and reaches for the IV stand, moving it closer to her bed before shifting himself over to sit beside her. He recaptures her hand, holding it gently in both of his.

“I don’t want you to change who you are. And yeah, I might get annoyed when we’re not on the same page, but I’ll try to handle it better. To remember, in the moment, that your stubbornness and your… almost _religious_ devotion to science… are two of the things I love most about you.”

She can’t help the quiet gasp that follows his admission. She tries to respond but can’t seem to find the words. Mulder presses on.

“Now, I’m not so foolish as to believe it will always be easy. I know we’ve got… unique challenges. Because of our work, because of forces beyond our control. Because we’re _both_ stubborn. But I also know what we’ve been through already. I know what we’re capable of overcoming, together.” He swallows. “And I know that I feel so much stronger, so much better with you, than I ever have alone. I want to feel that way all the time.”

He lowers his voice to a whisper. “I think we can do this, Dana. I want to try.”

“But what if… what about work? Aren’t you afraid they’ll split us up again if someone finds out?”

Now Mulder chuckles. “I’m pretty sure that everyone except Skinner thinks we’ve been sleeping together for years. And I bet even ol’ Walter has his doubts. But as long as we’re not, you know, necking in the elevator or something, what can they do?”

She laughs, then, a watery sort of sound. “Necking, Mulder?”

“I mean, if that’s something you’re interested in, we can try to find the elevator security camera’s blind spot.” He waggles his eyebrows at her until she laughs again, for real this time. “But why risk it? Plenty of other places we can be together, away from prying eyes. Surely we can manage to comport ourselves in a professional manner during the workday.”

“I don’t know,” she murmurs, “I have a feeling that if we let ourselves go down that road, it’s not going to be easy to turn back around again.”

He looks down at their hands, burned and bandaged but still seeking contact. It’s true enough that neither of them wants to let go of this small allowance, this tiny step forward. The act itself is nothing new, and all the more familiar in a hospital than any other place, but everything about this is different somehow. He swallows, then meets her gaze again and holds it as steadily as he’s holding on to her.

“But it’s a road you _do_ want to go down? With me?”

She sighs. “It’s not that simple--”

“I think it’s exactly that simple.”

“No, Mulder, it's not.” She frowns. “It isn't just about what we want. It’s more complicated than that, you said it yourself.”

“I said it wouldn’t always be easy,” he counters. “That there might be challenges, sure. But I don’t think any of them are insurmountable if this is something that we both want. Am I wrong that we both want this?”

“No,” she whispers, looking down. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “No, you’re not wrong. But I still can’t help feeling like we would be taking an enormous risk. I’m so afraid of, of breaking us. You’re too…  important to me. Too big a part of my life.”

“Call me crazy, Scully, but I’d say it’s a _good_ thing we feel that way about each other.” She dares to bring her eyes back up to his, and he smiles softly at her. “It means we've got the same things at stake. That we'll both fight like hell to keep what we have. To make it work, no matter what gets thrown at us.”

Carefully, deliberately, he raises her fingertips to offer a feather-light brush of his mouth. She swallows, her eyes welling up again, and a cautious smile spreads across her face.

“You don’t have to decide anything right now,” he tells her. “I just want you to know that I’m all in. Whatever it takes to make this work. Because I believe -- I _know_ \-- that it will be so worth it. And because we deserve to be happy too, even when we’re trying to save the world.”

Tears stream freely down her red and blistered cheeks, and she reaches up to gently dab at them with the bandage on her free hand. She sniffs, nodding at him. “Okay,” she whispers.

The grin that breaks across his face is the brightest thing in the room by far. “Yeah?”

When she nods again, he begins to lean forward, only to stop abruptly when she raises her eyebrows with a pointed look at the security camera over his shoulder. Glancing behind himself, he gives a chagrined shake of his head before changing his trajectory and placing a soft kiss on her brow instead. She closes her eyes as the moment stretches, pregnant with meaning and feeling and intent. 

At length, he sits back, and Scully is not the only one with misty eyes. She pulls his hand to her lips, as though anyone watching this display on the security footage wouldn’t have declared it beyond the bounds of the platonic long ago. With a final, lingering smile at one another, they disentangle themselves, and Mulder returns to his own bed.

Their plane ride back to Washington is going to be a hell of a lot better than their plane ride here.


End file.
